Australia police minister slams charities for not housing homeless

An Australian police minister has been criticized after saying charities should do more to help the homeless. Liza Harvey said that there was sufficient funding available and that charitable organizations were not doing their jobs properly.

The row was sparked
after the Department of Culture and Arts, in Perth, Western
Australia, used a sprinkler system in order to try to stop
homeless people from sleeping outside the local art center.
Harvey, who is the Police Minister for Western Australia, waded
into the argument by saying that there was no need for the
homeless to be sleeping outside the center, as there should be
sufficient funding available to house them.

"The accommodation is there, the support services are there,
the not-for-profit groups are there, the money's flowing into the
system," she said, according to ABC. "Clearly if there's homeless people
sleeping on King Street, those people aren't doing their jobs
properly."

WAMinister Liza Harvey's comment that rough sleepers exist due
to charities "not doing their jobs properly" are very
unfortunate&misinformed

However, her comments brought a less than enthusiastic response
from the St Vincent De Paul Society, who said that trying to
solve the situation was not as easy as Harvey was making out.
Mark Fitzpatrick said that the charity already runs six homeless
programs, with only one getting any government funding.

"Every night in Perth, that short-term accommodation is
already filled so it is very hard for people to find that initial
place to go and get support," he said. "So to suggest
that there's enough money out there to provide an outcome for
this is probably not true,” he told ABC.

There are just over 9,500 homeless people in Western Australia,
which is a one percent increase from a decade ago, according to
the Homelessness Australia
website. However advocates say the number is much higher and
every night there are more than 13,000 homeless people in Perth
alone.

Warren Palmer, spokesman for the WA branch of the Salvation Army
told the Guardian Australia that he thought the decision to use
the sprinklers around the center was uncalled for and mentioned
that, “with crisis accommodation at full capacity there is
little option other than sleeping on the streets.”